Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Company Crosses Milestone. It’s Our ‘Holy Smokes’ Non-TV Story of the Day

“Berkshire Hathaway is the company created and run by Warren Buffett for nearly five decades now. The conglomerate owns more than 80 firms including Geico Insurance, BNSF Railway and Dairy Queen,” and it’s now passed a significant milestone, reports NPR.

The story reports: “A Class A share of Berkshire Hathaway is now worth more than $200,000. On Thursday [Aug. 14, 2014], shares closed up $3,500 at $202,850. The Omaha, Nebraska-based company has a market value of more than $333 billion.”

Passing a cost of $200,000 for a single share of stock is a milestone for Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway, which continues to be the single most expensive stock on the New York Stock Exchange.

“Its stock price has doubled since October of 2006 when it crossed the $100,000 mark. Buffett’s legendary investment talent helped Berkshire shares outperform the S&P 500 index by a wide margin during that period,” the story says.

NPR adds that Buffett “has never split Berkshire’s shares — something many companies have done multiple times to make their share price more attractive to investors.

“Buffett says he believes a lower share price would prompt speculative trading, and he doesn’t want investors to think they can make a lot of money fast by trading Berkshire’s stock and then blame him if they don’t.”